


Something More Than Fruit Salad

by tornyourdress



Category: Frasier - Fandom
Genre: Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 19:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornyourdress/pseuds/tornyourdress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roz is over at Daphne and Niles's place lamenting the lack of eligible men... again. Set in season 10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something More Than Fruit Salad

**Author's Note:**

> _Title (and premise) from 10x03,['Proxy Prexy'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLSeSAcUwjI), in which Roz mistakes 'melange' for 'menage'. _
> 
> __  
> 
> 
>   
> _Niles: "Rest assured, we would have offered you something more than fruit salad to get you in the mood."  
>  Daphne: "You know what? She didn’t say no."_  
> *  
> 

Roz is tired of bad dates and tired of complaining to Daphne about them. Even as she lifts her hand to the doorbell she knows Daphne will probably be bored within minutes, though she won’t show it. Other people’s dating disasters are only interesting for so long. 

It’s Niles that answers, in a silky bathrobe. “Roz! Come on in.”

He sounds glad to see her. She remembers the days when he’d have been too uptight to let her see him in anything but a suit, the days when she only visited his apartment for the occasional dinner party or with Frasier and hardly ever unannounced. 

“Hey, Niles. Is Daphne here?” She doesn’t want to make it sound as though she’s only come to see Daphne; it’s more a code for “I need to dissect the latest hideous specimen passing as a single man in Seattle these days”.

“She’s just picking up some cream,” Niles says. “She’ll be back soon. Sit down, can I get you a drink?”

He is a charming host. It’s something she never quite appreciated when he was just Frasier’s brother, before he became Daphne’s husband. 

“Sure,” she says, and lets him pour her a glass of wine. The sofa is plush, the kind you can tell is expensive because it feels so good, and she’s already relaxed.

“Bad date?” he asks, a glass of wine for himself in hand.

She can feel her face falling. “Is it that obvious?” She’s about two seconds away from meltdown – not only has she had yet another encounter with a loser (this one called his mother four times during the starter alone) but she’s predictable, an embarrassing cliché, a single mom who can’t get lucky – when there’s a hand on her shoulder. 

“It’s tough out there,” he says, and he’s being sincere.

“You got lucky,” she says.

“I know,” he says simply, quietly, happily. She reaches up and squeezes the hand on her shoulder.

She’s pleased for him. Them. She is. 

***

She’s imagined what it would be like with Niles, of course. Both before and after their attempt to make Donny and Daphne jealous. She’s imagined whether he would be anything like Frasier – she suspects there would be some differences, somehow, imagines more elegance with Niles. 

And she’s imagined Daphne too, though not quite the same way. She’s wondered about her and Donny, what they might have done differently, what might have been the same. It wasn’t comparing, exactly. Just thinking about it.

She never thought about the two of them together until just after they got married, in that brief window where she was the only one who knew, and she was shooed away to go take Eddie for a walk while they made out on Frasier’s couch.

And she never thought about the three of them together until that night with the fruit salad. They’ve just about let her forget it, which is why she’s alarmed when Daphne returns with cream and she realises from the shorthand between her and Niles that it’s for strawberries. It seems dangerously close to that code word that kickstarted all the jokes at her expense. 

***

“You’ll have some, Roz?” Daphne holds out the little bowl, and she accepts, and Daphne sinks into the sofa next to her. “What was it this time?”

Niles comes in, hands Daphne a glass of wine, and sits down on the other sofa. He folds his legs to the left and pulls his feet up beside him, to the right. It’s an oddly endearing pose for him. 

Roz sighs. “He was… oh, it doesn’t matter.”

Daphne is well-meaning. “Maybe next time you’ll meet the man of your dreams.” It is impossible for her to say this without it carrying some small bit of pride; she’s met hers and married him, after all.

“Yeah,” Roz says. She isn’t convinced. “Maybe I’ll sprout wings and win the lottery, too.”

“Both at once? You’d be quite the catch,” Niles says. 

“There must be someone out there,” Daphne insists. “There’s always Dr Crane.”

“Oh, no, I’m not going near Frasier again, we’re just friends,” Roz insists.

Niles blinks. “Good heavens, for a second I thought you meant me.”

Roz is the first to laugh, and then Niles. Daphne takes longer, maybe because Niles was Dr Crane to her for longer than he’s been Niles. 

“I suppose I could share him,” Daphne says thoughtfully, and suddenly the air in the apartment is different. 

Roz looks at Niles, who is looking at her, and then downs her drink. 

“Let me refresh your glass,” Niles says, sounding slightly strangled, and races to the kitchen with it. 

Daphne continues sipping. 

***

At some point, and she’s not quite sure how it happens, Daphne’s hand is on her arm. Just resting gently there, just below the elbow, but then there are feather-light strokes on the inside of her arm and it’s doing things to her that normally involve a lot more than feeling up her arm. 

A little moan of contentment slips out without her realising it’s coming, and she’s embarrassed now, it’s just that they’re sitting here drinking and talking and it’s probably just some unconscious gesture on Daphne’s part, she’s probably forgotten all about that earlier remark, but then Daphne’s leaning in and placing little kisses on her shoulder (clothed) and her neck (not) and this is definitely not what she expected when she rang the doorbell tonight.

And then there’s a hand on her hip that isn’t Daphne’s, and he’s there, reassuringly solid against her despite his slender frame, and she’s being kissed and she’s kissing and maybe it’s the wine or the unexpectedness of it but she can’t remember the last time she’s felt this young. This thrilled and giddy and excited. 

In the morning, when Daphne makes coffee for all of them, all three of them, Roz can’t remember the last time she’s felt this way – this sense of being taken care of, of being cherished – either. 

“You’re not seeing anyone tonight, are you?” Daphne asks, as though she’s ready to disapprove of anyone else, and Roz just shakes her head simply, quietly, happily.


End file.
